VENEZUELA HYPERINFLATION

The price of a cup of coffee in Bloomberg’s Cafe Con Leche Index has risen six of the past 12 weeks. During that period, the cost climbed from 5,500 bolivars to 45,000 bolivars. That’s an increase of 718 percent. Translated into an annualized pace, it comes to 448,025 percent.

The rate in the black market — where most Venezuelans acquire dollars — weakened to 202,000 bolivars per greenback on Thursday, according to dolartoday.com, a widely-watched website that monitors prices. That means that the monthly minimum wage is now the equivalent of less than $4.

LOOMING SHUTDOWN

The Senate leader intends to keep his chamber in session and stage a series of votes designed to embarrass vulnerable Democrats. The goal would be to place the blame for a shutdown squarely on 10 Democratic senators up for reelection this fall in states won by Donald Trump in 2016, and make them the face of a government closure. The strategy is risky for Republicans, considering that they control the White House and Congress.

The House passed a spending bill Thursday to avoid a U.S. government shutdown, but Senate Democrats say they have the votes to block the measure in a bid to force Republicans and President Donald Trump to include protection for young immigrants.

Shortly after the stopgap bill cleared the House, Senate Republicans said they would hold a vote later Thursday night to proceed to the measure. In the Senate, at least a dozen Democratic votes will be needed to approve the measure, and there is little chance those will materialize. Democrats are intent on securing concessions that would, among other things, protect from deportation young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, increase domestic spending, aid Puerto Rico and bolster the government’s response to the opioid crisis.

Some lawmakers are frustrated that Mr Trump last week backed a bipartisan deal on the Dreamers, before changing his mind several hours later. On Wednesday, Mr McConnell said he did not want Congress to be “spinning its wheels” by trying to pass a measure until it was clear what kind of legislation Mr Trump would sign into law.

If the government shuts down on Friday, President Donald Trump’s television habits may be partly to blame, according to two White House aides. The president began the day on Thursday by blasting out a tweet that threatened to derail a GOP legislative package designed to keep the government open, arguing that the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known by its acronym, CHIP, “should be part of a long-term solution, not a 30-day, or short-term, extension.” But that is precisely the package House Speaker Paul Ryan was trying to persuade skeptical Republicans to agree to in order to keep the government open.

BITCOIN, CRYPTOCURRENCY, INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS

Bitcoin’s recent slide isn’t discouraging for crypto bull Thomas Lee, who predicts that the value of the digital-coin market will roughly double to more than $1.2 trillion this year. Lee expects the price of one Bitcoin will surge to $125,000 by 2022. That’s 400 percent higher than his forecast from October, when he said the top digital token may reach $25,000 over the same period. That compares with about $11,750 Thursday.

To be sure, XRP is still more than 5,000% above its price a year ago. The high volatility of cryptocurrencies has attracted both Wall Street and retail investors looking to find more alpha than they could in the highly-regulated and much less volatile stock market.

“Today’s correction might seem cataclysmic to those that are new to the scene, but crypto has been through this roller coaster numerous times before,” David Sonstebe, the founder of the IOTA cryptocurrency, told Business Insider’s Frank Chapparo.

European regulators are considering a ban on popular retail derivatives of cryptocurrencies as part of their sweeping push to tighten rules around leveraged trading platforms. The European Securities and Markets Authority on Thursday said it was looking into whether so-called contracts for difference based on cryptocurrencies could be included in the scope of its plans to clamp down on online trading platforms.

Managers of a new investment fund have a message for those who made staggering gains from Bitcoin before the recent selloff: diversify and avoid the fate of early dotcom believers who were wiped out when tech crashed. InvestX will accept cryptocurrencies for investment in private companies headed for initial public offerings. Notably, the structure may also offer investors tax benefits as governments seek to take a share of the profits made from virtual currencies.

The International Monetary Fund is calling for global coordination on cryptocurrencies as it warned of the risks from surging prices. “Greater international discussion and cooperation among regulators, yes, would be helpful,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters Thursday in Washington.

After what some have deemed the crypto “bloodbath,” users on the South Korean online community DC Inside displayed their frustrations by posting profanity-laced stories and uploading images of broken items that they said resulted from their anger over the valuations. Though the user comments and images may be amusing for some, it underscores the implications of the South Korean government’s approach to cryptocurrencies, especially for those who have invested heavily in the market.

Digital currencies and the software developed to track them have become attractive targets for cybercriminals while also creating a lucrative new market for computer-security firms. In less than a decade, hackers have stolen $1.2 billion worth of Bitcoin and rival currency Ether, according to Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research LLP. Given the currencies’ explosive surge at the end of 2017, the cost in today’s money is much higher.

As Bitcoin continues its wild ride, a Singapore hedge fund unit is raising $10 million for a cryptocurrency arbitrage fund to trade off price movements. Kit Trading is joining an increasingly crowded field as interest in digital currencies explodes globally. In an Oct. 23 report, researcher Autonomous Next said 84 crypto hedge funds had opened in 2017, up from just 11 in 2016. While institutional investors have mostly stayed on the sidelines, companies are launching everything from funds to regulated exchanges to crypto derivatives, trying to lure them in.

Intercontinental Exchange Inc., or ICE, said Thursday that it was joining with startup Blockstream to launch a data feed that would pull information from more than 15 cryptocurrency exchanges around the world and deliver it to financial firms. Due to go live by March, the feed would transmit information over ICE’s high-speed data network in the same digital format used in electronic stocks trading, helping it fit seamlessly into the systems favored by big banks, high-speed traders and asset managers.

There is a big spread of opinion across the sector, with some seeing cryptocurrencies as a possible driver of a fundamental shift in the global financial system, others disliking bitcoin, but having some faith in the blockchain technology that underlines it, and others just seeing crypto as, basically, a complete waste of time.

Ripple’s golden goose cryptocurrency, whose price has now sagged, raises awkward questions. While its separate technology solutions for fast payment settlement impresses some financiers, XRP’s volatility, and Ripple’s ownership of more than half the 100bn XRP ever created, has unnerved banks that evangelists hoped would adopt the asset as a bridge currency.

TAXATION, WEALTH HAVENS, INEQUALITY

Credit card issuer American Express Co (AXP.N) posted its first quarterly loss in 26 years and said it would not buy back shares for the next six months, both due to the impact of the recently enacted U.S. tax reform.

RUSSIA PROBE

FBI agents are examining whether a top Russian banker who forged ties with the National Rifle Association funneled money to the gun rights group to bankroll its efforts to boost Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Russian intervention in the 2016 campaign has a number of complex threads. But the latest development is simple and old-fashioned. McClatchy reports that the FBI is investigating whether a Kremlin-linked Russian banker funneled money through the National Rifle Association to help elect Donald Trump. American law prohibits foreign campaign donations.

Nearly a year after President Trump’s inauguration, the committee that raised a record $106.7 million for the event has not disclosed how much surplus money it still has or provided a final accounting of its finances. Presidential inaugural committees are private fundraising vehicles that pay for the concerts, balls and other festivities that surround the swearing-in. Trump’s committee raised twice the $53.2 million President Obama collected for his first inauguration.

House conservatives negotiating with GOP leaders over how to avert a government shutdown brought a fresh demand to the last-minute talks: release classified information they say raises questions about the origins of the FBI’s probe into President Donald Trump’s possible connections to Russia.

President Trump reportedly ordered that former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon limit his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Trump’s decision came after receiving advice from Uttam Dhillon, a deputy White House counsel, Foreign Policy reports.

NORTH / SOUTH KOREA, IRAN, NUCLEAR WEAPONS

North Korea, Friedman writes in the forecast, “has backed Washington into a corner. The U.S. does not want North Korea to have nuclear weapons, but neither does it want to launch the full-scale invasion that would be required to disarm it.” For the moment, North Korea and the U.S. are at a stalemate, Friedman says. “Everybody is hoping that somebody else will break first.”

Intelligence gathered by American officials provides what they say is detailed evidence of sanctions violations, involving illicit cargo such as coal that the regime relies on for hard currency. China later successfully lobbied to have the vessels removed from a proposed United Nations blacklist.

RATES, LIQUIDITY, SYSTEMIC RISK, BALANCE SHEETS

The weak dollar has whittled down returns for unhedged money managers, raising the prospect of capital flight if the greenback’s losing streak gathers pace, warn Wells Fargo & Co. strategists. “We see a distinct risk that non-U.S. investors could become net sellers as global economic growth converges and central banks transition from a nearly a decade of easing to more normalized polices, resulting in a lower USD,” strategists led by George Bory wrote in a report distributed to media this week.

As illustrated by this chart from Statista — which is based on data from Bank of America Merrill Lynch — when it comes to how the biggest corporations plan to spend their overseas cash, capital expenditures, which represent investments in things like new equipment and new buildings, are a distant fourth on their priority lists, trailing not only debt repayment, but buying back their own shares and purchasing other companies.

Sovereign issuers that are selling bonds in euros at a record pace could well be finding some of the world’s most prolific buyers ready to pounce. Investors in Japan and China are shunning U.S. Treasuries, and the conditions are ripe for that cash to find a home in Europe. A widening deficit may double U.S. government bond supply this year, while tax cuts threaten to curb corporate demand for Treasuries. At the same time, Europe’s economy is booming, the euro is the best-performing currency in the Group of 10 in the past 12 months, and the region’s central bank is still buying bonds.

The true believers behind blockchain platforms like Ethereum argue that a network of distributed trust is one of those advances in software architecture that will prove, in the long run, to have historic significance. That promise has helped fuel the huge jump in cryptocurrency valuations. But in a way, the Bitcoin bubble may ultimately turn out to be a distraction from the true significance of the blockchain. The real promise of these new technologies, many of their evangelists believe, lies not in displacing our currencies but in replacing much of what we now think of as the internet, while at the same time returning the online world to a more decentralized and egalitarian system. If you believe the evangelists, the blockchain is the future. But it is also a way of getting back to the internet’s roots.

One way to understand what happened with regard to Russia is that because our political system is open and decentralized, we’re vulnerable to this kind of attack. But the possibility that Russia funneled money through a group such as the NRA highlights another dimension of our vulnerability, which is that thanks to the conservative attack on campaign finance restrictions and disclosure rules, the system has become much less transparent, in ways that enable those with resources — including, perhaps, hostile foreign governments — to influence the elections while keeping their tracks covered.

Big U.S. technology companies are leading the race. But their Chinese rivals are catching up quickly because of growing investments, as well as freer access to enormous amounts of data about people, often compiled with the help of government agencies. In the West, access to such information is at times limited by growing concerns over privacy and the ethics of letting machines make important decisions—fears that are leading to new policies and stricter proposals around collecting personal data and deploying AI.

If countries coordinate their economic policies too closely, their business cycles could become overly synchronized, leading to booms—and busts—that are global in scale. And if there’s just one unified world financial architecture, mistakes could propagate through it more quickly and destructively than if there are multiple, competing systems. The analogy is to a forest that has only one species of tree: A single insect or fungus could spread rapidly and wipe out the whole thing.

Nearly all — 93 per cent — WEF members think that political and economic conflicts between countries will increase this year; 79 per cent believe there is a rising danger of military conflicts; and 78 per cent expect that large countries will be drawn into regional battles. Unsurprisingly, this leaves two-thirds of WEF delegates nursing the gloomy conclusion that the world will be riskier in 2018 than last year.

If one needed a reminder of how surreal the globalization debate has become in recent years, look no further than the talking salons of Davos. In an historic role reversal, it’s the leader of the Chinese Communist Party who has emerged as a defender of the Davos consensus, last year using his speech in the Swiss ski resort to defend globalization. And it’s an American president — the main event this year — insisting his country’s economic interests take precedence over gauzy visions of a more inter-connected world.

A year ago, before the investor lawsuits and the federal investigations, before the mass resignations, and before the connotation of the word “Uber” shifted from “world’s most valuable startup” to “world’s most dysfunctional,” Uber’s executives sat around a hotel conference room table in San Francisco, trying to convince their chief executive officer, Travis Kalanick, that the company had a major problem: him.

More than 20 per cent of Japan, an area the size of Denmark, has no readily contactable owner. By 2040 the projected area is bigger than the Republic of Ireland — a spreading nightmare for government, construction and the property industry, because if nobody knows who owns the land then nobody, except for flytippers, can use it.

For years, hospital executives have expressed frustration when essential drugs like heart medicines have become scarce, or when prices have skyrocketed because investors manipulated the market. Now, some of the country’s largest hospital systems are taking an aggressive step to combat the problem: They plan to go into the drug business themselves, in a move that appears to be the first on this scale.

Big Oil is now Big Tech. So big, in fact, that Eni SpA’s new supercomputer is the size of a soccer field. In the multimillion-dollar pursuit of the world’s most powerful computers, the Italian explorer says it’s taken the lead. Its new machine, located outside Milan, will scan for oil and gas reservoirs deep below the Earth over thousands of miles.

Here’s a hypothetical example of how the theory might play out in the real world. Let’s say you manage a small construction company, and you’ve been getting away with paying your crew relatively little because there aren’t that many other contractors posting help-wanted ads in your town. You need a new carpenter. But you don’t want to tick off the rest of your men by offering this new potential employee a more generous wage. So you post the job with the same mediocre hourly rate you’ve offered for the past three years. Nobody good responds, and to you, this looks like there aren’t enough talented carpenters out there. But in reality, there’s only a shortage of people willing to work at the artificially low wage you’ve set your heart on paying. The real problem isn’t a skills shortage, it’s that you aren’t offering market wages, because the market isn’t functioning.

CENTRAL BANKS & MONETARY POLICY

The South African Reserve Bank kept its benchmark lending rate unchanged for a third consecutive meeting as the risks of a credit-rating downgrade persist, muddying the outlook for the rand and inflation.

The White House is considering John Williams, the president of the San Francisco Fed, as a candidate to serve as the vice chairman of Federal Reserve Board in Washington, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bill Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said it would be “prudent monetary policymaking” to put the central bank’s method of managing the economy on the agenda this year, even as he insisted this was not because he was worried the US faced the threat of an imminent downturn.

The tax overhaul that Mr. Trump signed into law just before Christmas remains relatively unpopular and highly polarizing, according to a new poll conducted for The New York Times by SurveyMonkey. But support for the law has grown significantly over the past month, and more Americans believe that they will receive a tax cut. Forty-six percent of Americans strongly or somewhat approved of the law in early January, up from 37 percent when the bill was nearing passage in December.

GLOBAL ECONOMY DATA

Measuring the size and health of the world’s second-largest economy can be difficult at best. Its official figures have become implausibly smooth and steady, even as other countries post results with plenty of peaks and valleys. Officials in far-flung regions are admitting their numbers are wrong. And outside experts crunching the data have come up with different — and usually weaker — results.

Beyond the headline performance, the outlook appears hazier to many economists. Key drivers of last year’s expansion, from investment to consumption, appear to be weakening, undermined in part by a government effort to wring out excess manufacturing capacity and purge risky lending from the financial system.

COLOR, EARNINGS, SENTIMENT, VALUATIONS

In all, American Express had a fourth-quarter loss of $1.22 billion, or $1.41 a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $800 million, or 88 cents a share. Excluding the charge, the company reported a profit of $1.58 a share. It was the first quarterly loss since 1992.

After reporting a plunge in bond trading, Goldman’s market capitalization fell to $99.4 billion at the close on Wednesday, a fraction less than Morgan Stanley. That snapped a 4,105-day streak, which started on Oct. 23, 2006. The reversal comes on the heels of an uncharacteristically rough year for Goldman, long-considered the envy of Wall Street.

Morgan Stanley has reached “an inflection point” after years of post-crisis restraint, chief executive James Gorman said as he pushed up profit targets and suggested the New York bank was on the hunt for acquisitions. His comments came just hours after the bank’s market capitalisation broke through the $100bn mark. On Wednesday it closed ahead of Goldman Sachs, its deadly downtown rival, for the first time in more than a decade.

International Business Machines Corp. reported higher revenue for the first time in 23 quarters and signaled continued growth into 2018, giving Chief Executive Ginni Rometty breathing space as she tries to turn around the century-old tech giant.

REAL ESTATE, HOUSING, REITS, COMMERCIAL

“Aging millennials and young families may be able to find more affordable new homes for sale this year, but they’ll most likely be in further-flung suburbs with more grueling commutes to urban job centers,” said Aaron Terrazas, a senior economist at Zillow. He added that tax cuts would put more money in buyers’ pockets, increasing demand at a time when builders continue to struggle with rising land and labor costs. The shortage is worse in some markets where home prices are rising faster.

HEDGE FUNDS, PRIVATE EQUITY, MONEY MGMT

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced plans Thursday to target a tax break for investment fund managers in his state. The proposal would impose a 17 percent “Fairness Fix” tax on hedge fund and private equity managers’ compensation — reflecting the difference between a 20 percent federal rate that such earnings often qualify for and the top 37 percent rate it would face if it were treated as ordinary income, according to Abbey Fashouer, a Cuomo spokeswoman.

Last year turned out to be one of the three warmest ever. “Seventeen of the 18 warmest years on record have all been during this century, and the degree of warming during the past three years has been exceptional,” said Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of Geneva-based WMO. The U.S. “had its most expensive year ever in terms of weather and climate disasters, whilst other countries saw their development slowed or reversed by tropical cyclones, floods and drought.”

An oil spill from an Iranian oil tanker that sank in the East China Sea is now the size of Paris. The slick covers an area of 101 square kilometers (39 square miles), after almost doubling in size from the start of the week, according to figures released Wednesday by the Chinese State Oceanic Administration.

Called the Trudo Vertical Forest, the 19-story skyscraper will house 125 units measuring approximately 540 square feet each. In total, 125 trees and 5,200 shrubs and plants will grow on the apartment balconies. According to its architects, the tower’s plants will consume 50 tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s the equivalent of kicking about 10 cars off the road annually.

China is preparing to send underwater robots to investigate the hull of a sunken Iranian tanker that has created oil slicks covering 100 sq km of ocean, marking one of the worst shipping disasters in recent years. The underwater operation, which will also involve surface vessels and divers, could attempt to plug holes in the hull that are leaking oil, according to the Shanghai Maritime Search and Rescue Centre. The effort to explore the wreck comes as authorities race to limit environmental damage from the spill.

CANADA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND

The unprecedented rise in consumer debt means the Bank of Canada’s rate-hiking cycle is already the most severe in 20 years and further increases will have far graver consequences than conventional analysis shows, Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced she is pregnant. Ardern and her partner Clarke Gayford said they were expecting their first child in June. “We’re both really happy. We wanted a family but weren’t sure it would happen for us, which has made this news unexpected but exciting,” she said in a statement.

One year into Donald Trump’s presidency, the image of U.S. leadership is weaker worldwide than it was under his two predecessors. Median approval of U.S. leadership across 134 countries and areas stands at a new low of 30%, according to a new Gallup report.

Great Wall Industry, the Chinese space launch company, is negotiating with Russia’s top rocket maker to procure sensitive engine technology, highlighting the deepening aerospace ties between the two countries that have sparked concerns in Washington.

Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe’s president, has signalled a clean break with the past and a desire to re-engage with the west by inviting the UN, the EU and the Commonwealth to send missions to monitor this year’s elections. Mr Mnangagwa also held out the prospect of swiftly re-establishing good relations with Britain, the former colonial power, after a two-decade rift under Robert Mugabe, the autocrat who was ousted after a brief military takeover in November.

A group of prominent friends, including a key Zimbabwean opposition leader and a Texas-based investor and philanthropist, was heading to a ranch in the U.S. state of New Mexico when their helicopter crashed and burned in a remote area, killing five people aboard.

Predictably, a source close to the president told Axios that Trump was liable to “explode” when he saw the interview. “Kelly has finally ventured into Steve Bannon territory when it comes to trying to create the perception that he’s the ‘great manipulator,’ saving the country from Trump’s ignorance,” the source added.

President Trump vented frustration at White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, upset about how Mr. Kelly described his immigration views in a Fox News interview and how he presented them to members of Congress earlier in the day, according to a person familiar with the matter.

President Donald Trump’s lawyer used a private Delaware company to pay a former adult-film star $130,000 in return for her agreeing to not publicly discuss an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, according to corporate records and people familiar with the matter.

HEALTHCARE, TAX REFORM, BUDGET

The Trump administration is planning new exemptions for health-care practitioners who have moral or religious objections to performing procedures such as gender-reassignment surgery and abortions, part of a broader White House effort to protect religious rights that critics say roll back anti-discrimination protections.

TRADE, PROTECTIONISM, REGULATION, OVERSIGHT

The U.S. is losing patience with the slow pace of Nafta talks and wants concrete proposals from Canada and Mexico on contentious issues such as content requirements for cars when negotiations resume next week, according to two people familiar with the matter.

SCANDALS, LAWSUITS, FINES, REGULATORY

US authorities have filed criminal charges against Robert Bogucki, the US head of foreign exchange trading at Barclays, for allegedly defrauding Hewlett-Packard by front-running a £6bn options order ahead of its takeover of Autonomy.

Before Sunday, neither law enforcement nor child protective services had any contact with the Turpin family. The couple hid the abuse in part by registering the residence as a private school, which prevented government officials from ever coming into contact with the children, the authorities said.

Nearly a year and a half after one woman filed a police report and contacted a newspaper, the criminal cases against Larry Nassar are nearing an end this week with a marathon sentencing hearing — 105 of the more than 130 girls and women who’ve accused Nassar of abuse are expected to speak — that began Tuesday and will likely stretch into next week, before a judge levies a sentence for seven sex crimes Nassar has admitted to as part of a plea deal.

SILICON VALLEY, UNICORNS, STARTUPS, VC

The deal includes a large purchase of shares from existing Uber investors and employees at a discounted valuation for the company of $48 billion, a 30 percent drop from Uber’s most recent valuation of $68 billion. These secondary stock sales will be completed by the end of the day Thursday on the Nasdaq Private Market, an Uber spokesman said.

Rajeev Misra, a board director of Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank — which became Uber’s biggest shareholder on Thursday, with the formal closing of a $9.3bn investment* — told the Financial Times that the transportation group had a faster path to profitability if it returned to its core markets such as the US, Europe, Latin America and Australia.

CLOUD, IOT, SEMICONDUCTORS, ENTERPRISE / SAAS

Security researchers who uncovered the Meltdown and Spectre flaws have been highly critical of its efforts. If Intel had taken the time to study the risks associated with the 10 major design aspects of its chips, it would have been likely to spot the problem — not to mention other potential bugs that may still be there, says Paul Kocher, an independent security researcher.

RETAIL APPAREL, SPECIALTY, DINING, BIG BOX

The winner could get up to 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion in investment, figures that Amazon has dangled in front of local officials, setting off an unprecedented competition to be the second home for one of the internet’s mightiest companies. In all, 238 cities and regions applied to bring the company to town, many using promises of tax breaks and public charm offensives to gain favor with the e-commerce giant.

The list, released Thursday, includes major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta, as well as smaller communities including Pittsburgh, Raleigh and Nashville. The nation’s capital is heavily represented, with D.C., Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburb of Montgomery County also making the cut.

AUTOS, ELECTRIC, SELF-DRIVING

Traditional carmakers have partnered with technology and ride-booking groups and even pizza companies as they develop electric and self-driving vehicles and explore new ways to make money from them. “Tech partnerships have never been more important, and they’re only going to grow in importance,” says Jim Farley, Ford’s global markets president.

AIRLINES, SHIPPERS, RAIL, TRANSPORTS

Emirates has thrown a lifeline to the world’s largest passenger jet with plans to order up to 36 A380 superjumbos in a deal that will keep the aircraft in production for another decade. Emirates has committed to buy just 20 aircraft and taken an option on 16 more, instead of agreeing to a firm purchase of 36 passenger jets as was widely expected in November. It will also take delivery from 2020, three years earlier than initially planned, helping Airbus to bridge a gap in production from 2019.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, DRONES, FUTURE TECH

Two teenage boys were rescued by a brand new lifesaving drone in Australia while lifeguards were still training to use the device. The swimmers, aged 15-17, had got into difficulties off the coast of Lennox Head, New South Wales (NSW). A member of the public spotted them struggling in heavy surf about 700m (2,300ft) offshore. Lifesavers instantly sent the drone to drop an inflatable rescue pod, and the pair made their way safely to shore. John Barilaro, the state’s deputy premier, praised the rescue as historic. “Never before has a drone fitted with a flotation device been used to rescue swimmers like this,” he said.

SCIENCE, NATURE, PSYCHOLOGY

Mr. Skala has until the end of August to complete a major renovation of the Orloj, one of the oldest clocks in the world. When he is done, the engineering marvel that started ticking in 1410 will have been returned to its medieval roots in ways both visible and invisible to the crowds that assemble daily on the square below. In an effort to be true to the original clock master’s design, he will, in effect, have turned back time.

MISCELLANEOUS

Ms Holten, a vegan and animal rights activist, has campaigned against the use of cowbells in the village and her actions have annoyed the locals. The resident’s committee argued that if she does not accept Swiss traditions and the Swiss way of life, she should not be able to become an official national. Ms Holten told local media: “The bells, which the cows have to wear when they walk to and from the pasture, are especially heavy.”

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